


her name was hope

by neonheartbeat



Series: Filled Prompts [11]
Category: Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Gen, Literal Sleeping Together, Not Canon Compliant, Pregnancy, Redeemed Ben Solo, References to Depression, Sharing a Bed, Sharing a Room, Sleep Groping, Sleeping Together, Slow Build, banging your redeemed goth boyfriend in the woods, ben solo screaming I LIVED BITCH BUT IM WORKING ON LIKING IT
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-20
Updated: 2020-01-20
Packaged: 2021-02-27 05:21:32
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,847
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22331797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/neonheartbeat/pseuds/neonheartbeat
Summary: Prompt filled from twitter! @poetdamerons requested a fic where Rey tells Ben she's pregnant and of course I had to make it 7k words long ANYWAY
Relationships: Rey & Poe Dameron & Finn, Rey & Rose Tico, Rey/Ben Solo, Rose Tico & Ben Solo
Series: Filled Prompts [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1138814
Comments: 44
Kudos: 402





	her name was hope

It's not really that the Resistance _hates_ Ben, not exactly. They just don't trust him very much, and Rey can't blame them: after all, he's not the most trustworthy person to people who have been fighting him for years, people who have lost friends because of him. The first week on Ajan Kloss after the initial celebrations die down are awkward, to say the least: Rey and Ben get more side-eyes and muttered words behind hands in passing than they care to count, even after both of them are released from Kalonia’s medbay (Ben with a brace on his knitting leg, courtesy of a good amount of bacta) and the third time Rey bristles and threatens a mechanic who makes some nasty remark about how oh, well, everything must be just _peachy_ now, since Ben's decided he's _good..._ well. It doesn't play out well. Poe and Finn (that is, Generals Dameron and Finn) pull them into a meeting and uncomfortably explain that maybe they should just...keep their Jedi stuff away from the military side of things until the tensions blow over. 

So. They get assigned two separate shelters out past the clearing where the main base is, quite a distance away from most of the people inhabiting the base. Lando drops by several times for a heart-to-heart or three, Chewie brings more food than they could possibly eat, and Ben spends most of his time reclusive and meditating in the hut they've been given while Rey sits around reading her texts for the billionth time and just _wishing_ he'd kiss her again, even once. 

Maybe he didn't really... mean it when he'd returned her kiss. Maybe he'd just been caught up in the emotion of the moment: he'd thought she was dead...maybe it was just elated shock and surprise and happiness. Whatever the reason for his distance, Rey doesn't like it, and after another week of him shuffling his broad body past her without touching her she follows him into the hut and sits down, crossing her arms. 

"You're ignoring me," she says flatly. 

"I..." His voice trails off, blank and surprised. "Am I?" 

"You are. I don't like it." 

Gods, but he looks young like this, so fresh-faced and unscarred. "Oh. Um." Both dark eyes fly away from her face for a second. "I've been trying to... connect. With my mother." 

Oh. That...that puts a different light on things. "Can you do that? I thought it was more of a, um, one way thing. They have to come to you, right?" 

"Maybe," Ben admits, scrubbing a hand through his shaggy dark hair. There’s dark stubble growing in at his chin and cheeks and upper lip, and she wonders what it might be like to touch it. "I thought it was worth a try. I didn't think I...deserved to do anything else." 

Rey frowns. "What, like... socializing?" 

"Like. Like what I did after you...we..." He blushes the color of jogan fruit, and Rey realizes in stark surprise that he's been thinking about her just like she's been thinking about him. "You know," Ben finishes lamely. 

"Y-yes. I know." She rubs her arms, avoiding eye contact and trying to think of how to even broach the subject. "You don't think you deserve...to be happy?" 

He barks a short little laugh, dry and derisive. "You think I _do_?" he asks, before turning his back on her and settling back into a meditative pose. 

She leaves the hut, feeling lost and slightly raw, and falls asleep in her own shelter, listening to the night-birds singing in the trees. 

* * *

"We think it's probably best if you two... stay here while we transfer everyone to Chandrila," says Finn gently, exchanging glances with Poe. "Just so there's no, um, friction with the Resistance. There'll be a transport sent for you later, like in a couple of months, to take you wherever you want to go--or if you want to go your separate ways, that's-" 

"We're not separating," says Rey hotly, and Ben, at her side, silent and looming as ever, has the grace to look away. "We belong together. I've told you—" 

"You know I don't get all that religious dyad mumbo-jumbo," says Poe, shaking his head. "But, okay. Sure. Your souls are the same, or something, and you have to stick with each other. Works for me. You sure you don't want to come to Chandrila? We could use a Jedi for the tribunals." 

Rey thinks of fresh clothes, a nice apartment, maybe interesting talks with important people who think she's important too, and the vision almost sways her—but no. "I'm staying with Ben. If he wants to go to Chandrila--" 

"I'm all right," he says quietly, making Poe jump a little. "I'll stay here. In exile." She almost wants to slap the morose expression off his face, but resigns herself to her fate and agrees, and Poe nods and has someone take a note on their datapad before moving off. 

* * *

Surprisingly, Rose is the one who takes to Ben at first, visiting and dropping off little sweets, pastries and extras from the canteen and even hot mocoa one cool night. Ben regards her with some wariness, as if he's not sure he should trust her, but gradually warms to her presence, even cracking the ghost of a smile at some of her stories, and he stops meditating constantly, stopping when he senses she's on the way to their little space. 

"We're leaving tomorrow," she confides in Rey one evening, as they're sitting in Ben's hut. "Don't kill me if I ask, but is it true that they've shoved you two out here because of..." Her black eyebrows raise and lower, and she indicates Rey's middle with a tilt of her head, glancing at Ben. 

"What?" asks Rey, confused. 

"You know," says Rose, eyes glinting. "Because you're... having... you guys..." 

"What are you talking about?" asks Ben, equally as lost. 

"Pregnant!" Rose exclaims, and Ben chokes on his rations, Rey turns bright scarlet, and Rose covers her mouth in horror. "Oh, no. Suns take me, it _wasn't_ true?" 

"Who—who _began_ a rumor like—" Ben's so mortified he can barely speak, his huge hands curling and uncurling, and Rey can't even look him in the eye. 

"I don't know. I heard it from Jannah, who heard it from Kaydel, who heard it from half of Black Squadron, but I-I-I thought it was true! I mean, they seclude you so when you start showing, nobody will—" Rose chokes. "Forget it. I can tell everyone it's not true." 

"Please do," says Ben while Rey squirms, covering her mouth in shock. "While you're at it, you can tell them that _fathering a child_ is the last thing on my mind at the moment." His eyes flash over to Rey's so fast that she thinks she might have imagined it, but then he's back on his feet, filling the space with his broad body. "I'm going to—meditate. In the forest. Good night, Lieutenant Tico." 

He leaves, limping slightly but moving fast, without another word, and Rey brings her hands down from her face, glaring at Rose in absolute humiliation. “What the _hell_ kind of—” 

“I’m sorry!” Rose cries. “But you’re not—are you, like, _seeing_ each other?” 

“I’m not going to even pretend to answer that,” Rey says hotly, leaping up from the ground. “Thanks for the dumplings. I’m turning in for the night, and tomorrow I’m going to pretend this conversation never happened.” 

“I’m sorry. I’ll, um. I’ll go,” mutters Rose, scarlet to the ears, and ducks out. 

* * *

Rey finds Ben in the forest, but he’s not meditating. He’s sitting against a tree, knees to his chest, his body looking as if he’s trying to make himself smaller by force. How odd, she thinks, that his body when it’s not lunging or swinging or trying to kill something is so...graceless, so awkward, even without the brace on his leg. He’s got his face half buried in his arms, looking away at the trees with blank eyes, and she doesn’t have to make a noise before he lifts his head, not looking at her as he speaks in a toneless, exhausted voice. 

“Is Tico gone?” 

He never uses anyone’s given name: he only refers to them by their title, or surname. Except for Rey. He’s always called her _Rey._ “Yes. She went back to base.” Rey squats cautiously, very aware of the emotions storming around him in the Force like a storm shot through with lightning. “I thought you’d be meditating.” 

“I thought I’d be, too,” he replies, still not looking at her. There’s a brief silence and she stands, intending to leave him if he’s not going to say anything else, but he turns his head in a jerky, half-formed movement, not quite looking at her as he blurts out, “No. Don’t go. Your presence is...” His words trail off, leaving her there standing in bracken awkwardly. 

“Something’s bothering you,” she finally says, shifting from foot to foot. “I can sense it. Was it about the stupid rumor? Because I can go and really start swinging on—” 

“No,” he says, very faint amusement playing at the edges of his voice. “As entertaining as that would be. No. That’s not it.” 

“Then what—” 

“I...” He stands then, all in one jerky movement: he leans on the tree and tests the weight on his braced leg. “When she said it—I thought about it. I thought about you. Carrying a child. Our child.” He isn’t looking at her; in fact he’s resolutely not doing so, staring into the dusk instead. “And I realized I—don't deserve that. Shouldn’t deserve it, not in a million years. A family, a new life, any of this.” 

Rey stands there, just blinking. “It’s not about—it's—Ben, you saved my life. It could have killed you. You risked everything to—” 

“And that’s enough, is it?” he asks, whirling on her with something like anguish written across his long face. “One good deed is enough to wipe out the decade of horrors I wrought as Kylo Ren?” 

“No. Nothing can wipe that out. The past is the past. I recall someone telling me to let the past die.” 

He flinches. “Don’t throw that in my face—” 

She steps forward. “What? You can’t change it, Ben, any more than you can stop the sun from rising and setting. It goes on. You can’t change things you’ve done. You can only work forward and make things better. I want—I want to help you make things better. If you’ll let me. Please.” She extends her hand, the palm cupped upward, and he looks at her fingers, and she realizes how very badly she wants him to take her hand. Her skin prickles with anticipation, of all things: she wants him to touch her, _needs_ him to touch her. “Ben,” Rey repeats, unable to mask the desire in her voice. 

There’s nothing in his face that she can decipher. He looks away, shoulders hunched, and shakes his head in a sharp, forceful movement. “I should have died on Exegol.” 

Shock punches through Rey like a blaster bolt as she stands there frozen with her hand still waiting. “How can you _say_ that?” 

“It’s true. You know it is.” He looks back at her, gaze full of nothing but pain and despair, and that scares her as nothing has since Palpatine. “You should leave me out here. Don’t come looking. I should have ended. I’ll just... end. Out here. I was a fool to think I could ever be anything more than my worst actions—” 

Rey crosses to him and seizes him by the wrists. It’s the first time she’s laid her skin to his since they’d come back to Ajan Kloss, and he’s warm, solid, real, _alive._ “Stop,” she says, far more firmly than she’d thought she’d be able to. “Stop it, Ben. I’m not leaving you out here and I am not letting you die.” 

“Stubborn,” he says, but he sounds like he might cry. “There are some things even you can’t fix, little scavenger.” 

“Doesn’t stop me from trying, does it?” she retorted. “Now come back with me. You’re sleeping in my quarters.” 

Ben’s expression changes from despair to visible alarm as she pulls him through the woods. “I don’t think that’s _really_ such a good—” 

Rey blushes. “Don’t get excited. I don’t trust you to not run off in the night. That’s the only reason.” 

“The only reason,” he echoes, eyes narrowed as he lets her guide him back to their clearing. “Mm.” 

* * *

Rey strips down to her basics as she does every night, making sure to block the door with a good loud scrapy piece of duracrete as Ben sits gingerly on their sleeping pad and... watches. He’d brought his over from his own little hut, and together, spread out on the floor, they both make about a full-size pad, the kind that married people share in HoloNet shows. Rey steps across the woven mats that make up the floor, watching the portable glowlamp cast warm shadows across the walls and the features of Ben Solo’s face as he sits on his mat and just... looks at her. Not that she minds, but when he’s still fully clothed and she’s in her skivvies it’s a bit awkward. “Are you going to change for sleep?” she asks, going to the other side of the pad, where her own space is. 

“I...” He looks uncomfortable, and shifts his weight, but doesn’t answer the question. 

“Is it the brace?” She pulls her knees up and scoots to his side, peering down at the durasteel and fiberplast thing that supports his healing leg. “I can help you get it off, if you want. How do you usually—?” 

Ben glances over. “I usually just take everything off and, ah. Sleep without anything on.” 

The full implication of that sinks in for a second. “Oh. Anything?” 

“Yes.” Ben reaches down and undoes the fastenings on the brace, slipping it off and setting it aside. “Is that acceptable?” 

Rey manages to keep an entirely straight face as she answers, “Yes. If you like, I can take these off, too. Just so we’re on the same footing.” 

Ben almost chokes and gives her a shocked look before turning his attention back to the fastenings on his trousers, his ears turning red at the tips where they poke through his black hair. “N-no. That’s not necessary.” His hands are shaking a little, but he gets everything off, so Rey turns around quickly, before he can get his basics off: maybe she doesn’t need to see quite everything just yet. 

The sounds of fabric flumping softly on the floor mats, and after them, the sound of the brace clicking back into place on his leg bring Rey to the awareness that Ben is completely nude, inches away from her. A quick swallow wets her suddenly dry throat, and she lies down quickly, face burning as she faces the wall. It’s not a big dwelling, just big enough for one, which means Ben’s taking up most of the space within the confines of the wall, and Rey tries very hard not to think about exactly how much space he could take up in this makeshift bed. He shifts, moves a little, and goes still. 

“Good night,” he mutters, heat emanating off him as if he’s a furnace. 

“G’night,” she whispers back, and lies awake, watching the glowlamp slowly fade off and listening to his breathing go slow and soft and his weight on the pad beside her go heavy and slack. 

* * *

Rey wakes before dawn, groggy and bleary-eyed, to find an empty bed and Ben, clothed, in the middle of the floor, trying to eat as quietly as he can. The rustling ration packs had woken her, and she sits up, pushing her tangled hair out of her face. “Ben?” she asks, sleepy. 

“Oh. Sorry.” He guiltily tucks the refuse away. “I didn’t want to... open the door and eat outside. Scare you, I mean.” 

“Oh.” Her memory comes back, all at once. “Right. No, sorry. You didn’t tell me you got up before dawn.” 

“Old habit. Up at 0500, train for two hours, breakfast. Except today I couldn’t get away to train, so. Breakfast first.” He shrugs. 

She looks down. “You made the bed,” she says, yawning. “Ugh. I’ll train with you, if you want. We have time to kill before they all leave for Chandrila.” 

“I... wondered if you might,” he says, heading for the door and the big chunk of duracrete, moving it away. It scrapes and groans along the synthstone floor, and Rey swings her legs out from under the blankets, reaching for her clothes and tugging them on. 

* * *

They spar until the sun comes up, him with his grandfather’s saber, sky-blue ozone humming through the trees, and Rey with her yellow-bladed new one, patched together from pieces of her staff. Every time their blades cross, emerald green light flashes and sparks, green as life, green as the trees around them. 

The sun peeks through the leaves overhead, and Rey manages to finally get the upper hand: she hooks her ankle around Ben’s good leg and topples him off-balance, blade humming inches from his neck as she pins him down, panting with sweat dripping into her eyes. He gazes up at her as if he’d like nothing more than for her to drive it into his heart, and she realizes herself, switching off the blade and stepping back, letting him stand. “That was cheating,” she says, abashed. 

“Any advantage should be taken over an opponent,” he tells her, hanging the saber at his hip. “You did well.” 

“Let’s go clean up and see everyone off,” she says, avoiding the topic. 

* * *

They say their goodbyes and watch as the transports lift one by one into the cool blue sky, leaving behind only Ben and Rey and the abandoned base on the floor of the jungle. Rose had told them that the power blocks would last for a good ten years, just in case, and they had running water in the freshers and food to last. Rey surveys the ground as the last transport disappears through the upper stratosphere, wondering which room she’d like to stay in the most: the officers had nicer quarters, but the enlisted dorms were closer to the food. 

“So,” says Ben quietly, and she turns her attention from the buildings around them to his face. He looks tired, worn out, though the sparring this morning shouldn’t have drained him that much. “This is it.” 

“Yeah,” she replies, a little lost. “Just you and me and the jungle.” 

His lips twitch. “Mm. And you’re all right with this. Being left behind again.” 

That stung. “I’m not being left behind. I’m with you.” 

Ben’s eyes fill with sudden tears and he turns away, loping down the path to their huts with his long, uneven gait. Rey hesitates—she didn’t want him to go, she wanted them both to stay here with the light and power and working freshers—but after a moment she follows, pushing leaf and branch from the path until they enter their clearing, Ben pausing between their two shelters with his shoulders hunched over, his back to her. “I’m not letting you out of my sight, you know,” she calls, stepping up to come closer. 

He doesn’t answer for a moment, doesn’t even make a move to turn and look at her. He just stands there with an expression on his face as if he’s been struck in the stomach. “You don’t trust me,” he says finally. 

“Would you trust _me_ alone if I’d said I wished I’d died and told you to let me die in the woods?” she snaps back. Ben looks shaken at that idea, and lowers his eyes, giving in. 

“I’m... sorry I caused you any distress.” 

Rey sighs. “Good. You better be. Let’s go ransack the canteen. You look like you could use some fun.” 

* * *

The canteen is still stocked plenty well with food packs, caf machines, and a full kitchen—a little shabby, but fully functional, and Ben seems to come out of his funk a little, showing Rey how to make an omelette, long-grain rice—how to cook meat patties without burning them, how to make a simple, savory sauce for anything. She listens in amazement and at one point blurts out, “How did you learn all of this?” 

He looks away, slipping his food onto a plate. “My mother taught me.” Rey’s heart sinks. But he doesn’t look gloomy at all at the mention of Leia: he almost smiles, and they both dig in, wolfing down their first food in forever that hasn’t been brought out to them through the trees. 

* * *

When they’re both full, they walk together to the nice quarters: Rey thinks that it might have been D’Acy’s room. Spacious, a low, comfortable bed stripped of its linens, a familiar hair scarf left on the back of a chair—the room echoed of familiarity, of love, of closeness and home in the Force. Ben hesitates, feeling it too, but his shoulders relax: this was a place where love was abundant, and he adjusts to the sensation in the Force physically, sitting in the chair, his braced leg out straight, leaning back a little. 

“So,” he says quietly. 

“So,” says Rey. “We should have a schedule. It’s good for people to have schedules. Threepio told me so.” 

He looks interested. “What did you have in mind?” 

“Morning training before breakfast. Then we can spend the rest of the day making sure everything around the base is in rubbing order. We can stay here. I wouldn’t mind it.” Rey rubs her nose. 

“Sounds good.” Ben absently rubs at his thigh. “Kalonia told me two more weeks before I can take this off for good, and after I do to take it easy.” 

“Excuses,” she shoots back, half-smiling. “I won’t go easy on you during training.” 

“Mm,” he hums, eyes flashing up to hers. “I would never expect you to.” 

And then they just... stand there in a bedroom, looking at each other until Rey turns pink and looks away. “I’ll... get ready for bed.” 

“Oh. Yeah, me too.” He stands, and she doesn’t miss the half-hopeful, stealthy little look he gives her... but he says nothing else, doesn’t advance, simply undresses and climbs into the bed. 

* * *

Rey wakes the next morning with a heavy arm flung around her waist, a large nose buried in the back of her head, and soft, hot breath warming her neck from nape to shoulder. Immediately, her senses go on high alert, a prickle flushing from scalp to toes: _what is happening?_

Then, she remembers: half-waking in the night, Ben mumbling in his sleep, cuddling closer to her, and her hand coming up to pat at his arm, the words _it’s okay_ making it past her sleepy mouth. Oh. So he—this was—something was prodding at her lower back, and she squirmed slightly, hardly daring to wake him. Maybe she could slip out— 

Ben lets out a throaty little moan and tugs her closer, rolling her to her stomach, still sleeping. The hard thing poking at her back slips up a little, hot friction against her basics-clad backside, and she freezes: she knows _exactly_ what that is now, and his arms are holding her like a prison. Not that she _wouldn’t_ like him to rut into her ass like some kind of animal, it’s just that he’s _asleep_ and if he wakes up to this he’s going to be so upset— 

Rey thinks quickly as he crushes his hips into her again, panting hot into her skin. “Ben,” she tries, whispering. 

No answer, just groaning as his movement increased in intensity. Rey felt a deeply uncomfortable wetness start spreading between her legs, her breath beginning to come in short little gasps. _How would I want him to wake me if it was reversed?_ The thought of herself grinding one out in her sleep on an awake, mortified and aroused Ben is _almost_ enough to send her hands between her thighs for relief, but she forces her thoughts back to center stage. “Ben,” she tries again, cheeks hot. “Hey. _Ben._ You h-have to—” His cock slips _between her legs,_ because of course it does, he sleeps _naked,_ and the rough-knit fineweave basics on his bare skin is enough to jolt him a little. She’s not sure if he’s awake, because the thrusts keep coming, albeit a little less regularly, but she keeps whispering gently, talking. “It’s all right, really. It’s okay. I wouldn’t mind it. I’d just... you know, rather you be awake. At the time. If we did. It’s okay. I know you were sleeping. Really. It’s fine.” His cock drags along her inner thigh, and she sucks in air, because that _tickles_ . “ _Fine,_ it’s fine. Don’t panic on me. Please. When you wake up. Don’t get upset. Not your fault. Don’t run off and shut me out, _please_ don’t, because I’d prefer to _talk_ , not—” 

The movements still. “Rey,” he says, sounding completely toneless and dead. 

“Ben? Are you awake?” She tries to crane her head around, which isn’t easy, considering she’s flat on her belly by this point, pinned down by half his body. “Ben?” 

“I...” The weight suddenly lifts, and she rolls over, flustered and disheveled, to see him pushing himself up with his arms, sick horror written across his face, hair stuck to his forehead, mouth open. “Oh, Force. _Force_. I’m so—sorry. Rey.” He lurches back, away from her, and she can’t help but look down between his legs. His cock is still hard, full and thick and pointing at her, and yes, it’s just as big as it had felt between her thighs. 

“I’m not—upset,” she manages, sitting up. Her nipples are still hard and peaking under her white cotton band-bra, whether from the coolness in the room or the arousal she’s not sure, but his eyes focus on them with sudden sharp intensity even as shame rolls off him like a physical fog she can sense through their bond. “I just—I figured you’d rather be awake for something. Like. That. Please don’t get upset at yourself.” 

“It,” says Ben, voice toneless, almost a whisper, “is a weakness. Physically. I—” He shakes his head sharply for a moment, shoulders hunched, head down, like he’s expecting a blow, but nothing comes, and he gives her a tentative little glance from under his hair. “Sorry.” 

“For what? Did you think I was going to hurt you?” Rey kicks off the sheets and checks the chronometer on the nightstand: there’s still five hours until sunrise. 

“Not you. No.” He shuts his eyes and inhales deeply. “When I—when Snoke—Palpatine, whoever, whatever, it doesn’t matter—when I had... _feelings,_ urges like this, when I slipped up—he would...” Ben looks away again, chest heaving as if he’s trying to get every atom of oxygen out of the room. “It’s not you,” he finishes. 

She feels sick. “He’s dead,” she says. “Nothing anymore. And he’s not going to hurt you.” She pats the bed beside her. “Come to bed. Sleep.” 

“I can’t,” he murmurs. “Not now. I have to—meditate. You go back to sleep. I’ll—I’ll sleep in another—” 

“You will not. You better come back here as soon as you’re done meditating,” Rey tells him. “I’ll be waiting.” 

He pauses, then nods. “Okay.” Up he gets, slinging a robe around his wide shoulders, and legs his way stiffly out the door as it hisses open to allow him passage, out into the corridor. 

Rey lies back down and shuts her eyes, meditating a little herself: _peace, peace. Be with me. Be with me._

* * *

She’s on the edge of sleep when the door hisses open gently, soft uneven footsteps approaching her, and the bed sinks down on the other side. A warm body slots itself alongside hers, and she rolls automatically, seeking the heat and curling around the body in the bed. He doesn’t speak, and neither does she, but one hand tentatively comes up to cradle her back, and she falls asleep like that with him. 

* * *

They spend the next week like this: neither one speaks of that night, but they dance around each other, only the most casual of touches exchanged between them. Ben might press a thumb along Rey’s hand as he passes her a drink, or Rey might slip past him on the path, her pinky finger brushing his. They orbit each other, never quite eclipsing the other, never overlapping. Everything moves like a dance. There are steps, sequences, careful movements. 

The second week brings more daring feats. Rey touches Ben’s shoulder to guide him into a new meditation pose, and Ben cups the back of her head, tenderly checking her face when he thinks he’s accidentally struck her with a sparring stick. His thumb finds the strangest places on her body: her mouth, her forearm, her knee—like he’s mapping out unknown regions of a minefield, as if the wrong place will turn Rey into a coaxium bomb. For her part, Rey sidles up to him, pressing her body to his once or twice in the canteen under pretense of reaching for something on a shelf in front of him; she cups his hand in hers when his palm blisters from sweeping and raking bracken away from the buildings; she nudges his knee with hers as they sit eating in the canteen. It’s all unspoken, but both get the message clearly enough: _I want you to touch me, I think about it, I am comfortable with you._ He loses the brace, but still walks with a slight limp, his gait awkward, but no less slow, no less powerful; and he begins to hold his head up higher, to almost smile more often. 

* * *

The third week, they get halfway through sparring one morning, both rank with sweat and dirt, and Rey gets herself locked into his staff with hers, unwilling to let go, to concede an inch as she struggles to gain the advantage, and he yanks her to his chest with one movement, eyes gone wild and bright as she pants into his face, dirt smearing her cheek, her hair falling down, and she can feel him through his trousers, hard and ready, and he whispers her name like a prayer. 

She kisses him, directly on the mouth, and he tastes like salt and caf and sweat but she doesn’t care, and neither does he, if the way his tongue presses against the seam of her lips is anything to judge by. So her lips open, and his tongue traces her mouth, and she groans aloud as he drags her down into the bracken, throwing the staves aside as his hands clumsily grasp at her clothing. 

“Ben,” she gasps when he leaves her mouth for a breath. “Do you—want to—” 

“ _Yes_ ,” growls Ben, hands shaking as he fumbles with her shirt, hunched over her body. “Rey. Yes. How do I—” 

“It’s a wrap shirt, there’s a tie,” she begins, and jerks in startled astonishment as he finds the tie and just rips it off the shirt, letting both sides hang open and exposing her basics. “Ben!” 

“I’ll get you another one,” he pants, and bends down, hands on her body, hands all over her, Two thick fingers hook into her basics, upper and lower, and he _yanks,_ tearing the fabric open in his eagerness to have her. “Force,” he breathes, mouth hovering above her breasts. “Do you know how many times I thought about these?” 

“Not as much as I thought about _your_ —oh,” Rey stammers as his lips close around her nipples, first the right, then the left. His stubbly beard scrapes and scratches against her tender skin, and she squeaks, smacking at him. “ _Shave_ already, you—” 

“Later,” Ben manages, and gives her tits another quick once-over with his mouth until they’re cold and wet in the air of the jungle, moving his head south until he’s panting over her thighs. “Can I. Can—” His eyes shut tight, then he looks back up at her. “I’d kiss you down here, but...” And Rey can sense that _but:_ he’s practically splitting the seams of his trousers in desperation to get off. She can wait. It’s not that important at the moment. 

“Pants off,” she orders, struggling out of hers as he strips down, his broad chest gleaming with sweat as he throws his shirt aside and hooks his thumbs into his trousers, yanking them down, eyes glued to her body as she discards her basics atop her ruined shirt. Everything is so _sensitive,_ so open and throbbing and wet: she needs him to soothe it, to— 

“Here,” breathes Ben, stripping out of his basics clumsily and kneeling between her thighs, a boyish earnestness on his face as he lines himself up. “Just be—still, I don’t want to hurt y—” 

“You can’t hurt me,” says Rey, hands on his shoulders. “You couldn’t ever...” 

He pushes in slowly, inch by inch, and Rey yelps aloud, clinging to his shoulders: she’s never felt anything like this before, not even with her own fingers, not with _anything_ : her mind flees back to the rudimentary toys she’d tried to fashion long ago with junk and how _unlike_ those this was. He was hot and firm and huge, and he’s whimpering softly as he delves deeper, shallow little experimental thrusts that open her deeper, deeper. “Rey,” he chokes, halfway in. 

“More,” she demands, scrabbling at his back, desperate for all of him. “ _More_.” 

He buries his forehead in her neck and thrusts in hard, deep enough to bottom him out, hips flush against her body. “Ohhh. _Rey_.” 

“O-okay. Now. Move.” She wriggles her hips, trying to get him to start, and he grunts assent, pinning one of her shoulders down with a hand as he starts moving, and _that_ , that’s everything. The lush, snug sensation of herself against his hard, unyielding flesh, the drag and pull along every nerve ending, the sparks running down her thighs: yes, this is perfect. Words unbidden spill from her mouth in a half-coherent mess. “Ben. _Ben,_ so good, good, Bennnn . Ohhhh . _Good.”_

Spurred on by her babbling, Ben buries his hand in her hair, nose smashed against her shoulder as he thrusts and works and groans above her. “Th-this, this, don’t, don’t w-want it to st-top, Rey...” 

“Don’t stop, don’t ever stop, keep _going,”_ she begs. Something’s building at the base of his spine, she can feel it: something bright and hot and planet-destroying, consuming, and he’s afraid of it. “I feel it too,” Rey pants into his ear as he moans. “It’s all right. Let it go. Let go.” 

“N-ngh, unngh, R-rey—” 

“Let it go,” she gasps again. “I’m here, I’ve got you. Let it—” 

Ben cries out like he’s being stabbed through the gut, his whole body tensing, and his hips falter in their rhythm, stuttering as a slow, spurting gush of something warm burns down between her legs, leaving her with an achy, unpleasantly squelchy feeling as he goes limp atop her, still buried between her legs, breathing like he’s just run a mile. 

The birds resume their singing overhead, the sounds of the warm jungle filtering back to Rey’s ears. She must have dozed off. Ben’s awake, on his side facing her, with one blunt, thick finger tracing her sternum gently. He looks better than he has in some time: relaxed, eyes sleepy, a brightness to his face that wasn’t there before. “Hello,” she mumbles, eyeing him up. 

“Oh,” he says, taking away his hand. “Ah. Did you like that?” 

“Mhmm.” Rey rolls to her side, facing him. “But, uh. I want to show you how to make _me_ do... what you did.” 

“I’m listening,” he says, very attentively. What a good boy, all ears and big brown eyes. She guides his hand down between her legs, and he is _such_ a good listener: he does exactly what she tells him to until her thighs go taut and she comes, crashing over him and herself and everything like a wave gone rogue. When she comes down, he’s still there, stroking her side as she catches her breath, watching her avidly with those dark eyes. “Ah,” he says. 

“Mm. Now you know.” Rey stretches, languid and sleepy. 

He brushes her nipple softly with a rough knuckle. “When can we... do it again?” 

She grins. So much for training. “As soon as you’re ready to go again.” Her hand pats down between his legs, and he makes a little startled noise, then grins at her, broad and real and _oh,_ how she’s missed that smile: big, crooked and sweet with pointed eyeteeth, dimples at the corners of his mouth. 

“Okay. Let’s... go back to the base?” 

“Yes. Let’s.” 

* * *

It’s another two months until Rey realizes with some belated alarm that she’s missed her cycle, and that her breasts are tender and that the nasuea in the mornings is probably not from the caf going bad. 

She makes some excuse to Ben to get out of sparring and rushes to the medbay. Without Kalonia, she won’t be able to do anything very intensive, but she finds a stack of human pregnancy tests in a drawer and pricks her finger, waiting as the strip absorbs it, turning crimson, and stares at the little viewscreen on the side of the round item, waiting, waiting. 

The results pop up in exactly two minutes, sixteen seconds. A little hologram pops up in Aurebesh lettering, hovering above the viewscreen: PREGNANT. Rey holds it in absolute terror and shock and just... sits. Pregnant. _Pregnant._ She doesn’t have medical care here, just Ben, and Ben... 

What is he going to _say?_

“You have got to tell him,” she whispers into the empty room. A baby. A _baby,_ here in the ruins of an abandoned base, with no idea when anyone would be back for them. She can’t wrap her mind around it. 

She goes back out into the woods, one hand trying not to cradle her ever so slightly rounded belly: will he notice? Will he be angry? Does he still think he doesn’t deserve a family, a child, love? 

Ben’s standing in the clearing when she arrives, wiping his face with his sleeve. He’s still not comfortable exposing his arms, and she understands that: things take time, incongruous little things. “Hey,” he greets her. “You all right?” 

“Um. Well.” She shifts from foot to foot, afraid to look him in the eye. “I. Ah. I have some news.” 

“Did the Resistance finally comm in?” He looks almost exasperated. “I’d rather just stay here. Nobody to bother us.” 

“Not... the Resistance,” Rey manages. “I, uh. Well.” There was no dancing around it, so she just braced herself and came right out with it. “I’m. I’m pregnant.” 

Ben’s face goes comically blank. His saber hilt falls from nerveless fingers as his eyes just stare at her without any emotion at all. This lasts for about two minutes as she stands there waiting for him to say something, and finally, she snaps, “Didn’t you hear me? I said I’m going to _have a baby_!” 

“I heard you,” he says, without any inflection. “I. Y-you. _Baby?”_

Well, that’s something. “It’s yours, obviously,” she continues. “So, _we_ are going to have a baby, I guess, except I’ll be the one doing all the work.” 

Ben drops to his knees without any preamble, making her shriek in startled horror. “Baby,” he repeats, stunned. “Are you. Happy?” 

Is she happy? Is she _happy?_ Tears well up in Rey’s eyes as she looks at Ben: he’s just kneeling, hands at his sides limply, looking up at her with the biggest, wettest eyes she’s ever seen. “Yes, you idiot. I am,” she hiccups, starting to cry. “Oh, Force. I thought—I didn’t even think about _me_ , I was so worried what you’d think: yes, I’m happy, I’m _happy_.” 

He starts to cry, fat tears dripping down his cheeks, and she steps to him, shushing him through her own tears as he tries to stop _her_ from crying and calm her, and that makes them both laugh, and he presses his cheek to her abdomen, trembling all over. “I don’t deserve any of it,” he weeps, hot tears seeping through her shirt. “You, a family, none of it.” 

“It’s not about what you deserve,” she whispers, stroking his hair. “It’s about what you’re given. A new chance. A new start. Take it. Be with me. Be with me, and our child.” 

Ben Solo’s hand finds hers, and his fingers are shaking. “Yes,” he replies, brokenly. “I will. I’ll be with you. You’ll never be alone, Rey. Never again.” 

“Never again,” she agreed, and pulled him up to kiss her under the morning sky. 


End file.
